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Thursday, April 29, 2010

Boa Yarn for Tying Fly-Fishing Flies

I use Boa Yarn Leech flies quit a bit, because I catch a lot of fish with them. The pattern was originated by Rick Zieger. Rick had sent me some of these flies he'd tied. They aren't pretty, until you see them in the water! Rick also graciously gifted me a skein of the yellow boa yarn (sold by MEI MEI brand).

Here's a picture of some colors I recently tied:

Because of the success I've had with these flies, I wanted to try other colors, and also ensure I would NEVER run out of it, and have plenty to share with others. Plus another color of the stuff is used for a "Sister Carol's Grass Carp Fly", and I wanted to get some of that and pursue that species. Hey..it worked!

I searched E-Bay for boa yarn, and found several manufacturers I had not heard of before. This info might come in handy in the future, if more material is needed. Thought I’d share what I found. When doing searches on-line or on Ebay…make sure to check for “Boa Yarn” or “Feather Yarn”. Sometimes you’ll even find some under “Eyelash Yarn” but be careful of those, because a lot of “eyelash yarn” is NOT what you want!

In addition to Ebay, you can search on-line for these products, and sometimes find what you are looking for through on-line yarn/fabric stores.

To help others narrow their search and hopefully have some success in finding the material and colors they want, I've listed manfufacturers below who sell Boa Yarn.

BERNAT brand boa yarn (this is the most common available, but is still hard to find, and might not be manufactured anymore(?).

MEI MEI brand (this is the one Rick Z sent me in the color yellow)

PHENTEX brand “Fashion Eight”

PALETTE brand

SIRDAR brand

YARN BEE brand "Elvish Eyelash Yarn" (Dale Sanders found this one!)

L.L. Yarn brand

ICE brand lurex fringe ribbon yarn

PATONS "Twister" - chenille with matching feather strand

Anyway....the stuff works VERY well, and it also is VERY effective when I've fished it after dark (which is a LOT). I've caught catfish, including my biggest catfish so far on ANY gear...a 31" fish (about 12 lbs). This big boy hit while I fished a local public pond during my LUNCH HOUR!:

And here's one of several catfish I've caught on a yellow boa yarn leech at night:

And here's a largemouth bass:

In the last couple seasons, I've probably landed somewhere very close to 1,000 crappies on the Boa Yarn Leech pattern alone. Here's a 13.5" Crappie that hit a yellow version:

And here's a dandy bluegill that hit an orange Boa Yarn Leech at night: